Monday, July 25, 2016

Turkey nearly underwent a complete democratic reversal in
last week. In the early hours of the attempted coup last Friday, President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used an unlikely tool to galvanize his supporters when he
launched a FaceTime appeal to all Turks to descend to the streets. The Turkish
people heeded Erdogan's call, showing a great deal of maturity and courage in
facing the military and defeating the coup. A successful coup would have been
devastating to Turkey, but an unhinged post-coup Erdogan is equally
detrimental, not only to Turkey, but to the whole region’s democratic progress.

The failed military putsch against democratically elected
Erdoğan is a stark example that old autocratic habits die-hard in the Middle
East. The coup unmasked the reality of modern day Turkey, which has long dealt
with military incursions in civilian affairs which lasted until the Turkish
military memorandum of 1997, which prompted the resignation of then Islamist
Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. But Turkey’s path towards democratic progress
has been dealt a serious blow despite the failure of the generals in toppling
the AKP leader.

When Erdoğan came to power in 2003, Turkey and the rest
of the world looked at the Turkish experience as a model for Islamic democratic
rule, that maybe the Kemalist secular principles could coexist with the AKP’s
Islamist ethos, and that a secular-Islamist synthesis was possible under robust
legal and institutional mechanisms. Erdoğan’s popularity was all the more
enviable when he presided over an impressive economic growth. In the Muslim
world, Erdoğan became the symbol for democratic renewal under an overtly
Islamist banner and a populist pan-Islamic leader who has been a staunch critic
of Israel, the rallying cry for all Arab and pan-Islamic demagogues. Erdoğan’s
opposition to Sisi’s coup in Egypt, and the brutal regime of Assad made him a
champion for many in the Arab world. Erdogan has also been so successful among Muslims
in advancing a religious discourse that he was even compared to medieval Muslim
ruler,Salah Eddine (Saladin)who conquered Jerusalem during the Crusades.

Erdoğan’s pan-Islamic popularity remained unchanged even
when he started displaying a penchant towards autocratic rule. In the years
preceding the coup, Erdoğan launched a relentless campaign against his
opponents within the confines of Turkish democratic institutions, orchestrating
sham trials known asBalyoz(Sledgehammer) whereby hundreds of
high ranking officers were jailed and/or removed from the military. Using the
parliamentary majority of the AKP, he steered the country towards an executive
presidential system and was elected president in 2014. Erdoğan repressed all
who dared to oppose his sultanistic ambitions in Turkey and appeared truly to
be the only game in town. Indeed, in hisinterview with al-JazeeraTuesday, Erdoğan revealed that he was utterly surprised
when he first heard of the coup from his brother-in-law as he was vacationing
in Marmaris. Some say he was always expecting this coup; but was not sure when
this attempt would take place.

But in his state citadel, Erdoğan has always harbored a
not so secret fear of one formidable opponent, a former ally turned nemesis,
the Muslim preacher and scholar Fethullah Gülen. Gülen, who fled Turkey in
1999, and is in the US in a self-imposed exile, is the spiritual leader of an
order that runs several organizations and some146 charter schools in the US. The Hizmet-Gülen movement is largely known for its
interfaith message of peace and tolerance around the world. But his supporters
in senior bureaucratic and judicial positions in Turkey are said to constitute
“a parallel structure” aiming to depose Erdogan’s government.

In the days after the failed coup, Erdoğan has notably
singled out Fethullah Gülen as the main culprit behind the coup, and has
started what amount to a purge of the court system and the police force, in
addition to almostone-third of the militaryestablishment.

Erdoğan’s post-coup plan is to dismantle whatever little
democratic gains Turkey achieved in the past. The failed coup and Erdogan’s
popularity have given him a “carte blanche” to mold the Turkish State in his
image, cleanse the political establishment of the “parallel structure”, and
tame the military once and for all. The scope of the purge will be devastating
for Erdogan’s opponents in the state institutions, and Gülen will have to fight
the narrative that he was behind a coup that most Turks, even the anti-Erdoğan
crowd, opposed.

Beyond Turkey, Erdoğan’s revanchism is a setback to the
cause of democratic progress in the region. Arab liberals have almost
unanimously extolled the Turkish president and justified his post-coup
policies. Facebook status updates and Twitter posts have almost all endorsed
Erdoğan providing various rationale for his attempts at eroding Turkish
democracy, ironically in the name of democratic legitimacy and street
popularity. Commitment to principles of the rule of law, individual freedom,
and the liberty of the press that Arab liberals so arduously fought for are
deemphasized right now. In their blind support of Erdoğan, Arab liberals’ and
democracy activists’ commitment to democratic principles has largely taken a
backseat to retribution.

But the jubilant statements about Erdoğan and the triumph
of the will of the people mask a bitter reality that Erdoğan has charted an
autocratic course that will be almost as devastating to Turkish democracy as a
military junta would have been. Erdoğan still has time to reverse some of his
reprisals and to promote legal, measured means for prosecuting coup plotters.
The failed coup should not be a “gift from God”, as Erdoğan let slip in his
first appearance after the coup in Istanbul, to settle score with rivals and
opponents.

The path to democracy is fraught with uncertainties, but
most democratic transitions in the context of Latin America and Eastern Europe
in the last two decades of the 20th century came through negotiated pacts
within the political elite. This assumes that the elite class is inclusive even
of those that are diametrically opposed ideologically to prevalent political or
social views. The whole sale purge of Erdoğan’s rivals bodes ill for the
institutional progress of Turkey and the region. Turkey used to be a model for
the region, perhaps now, we should look for another model elsewhere. Maybe
Tunisia still holds some of that hope for a Middle Eastern democracy.

For the majority
of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world the holy month of Ramadan is one
for spiritual renewal, reflection, and peace. In Morocco, where I am observing
this holy month, the long day of fast is a reminder of the plight of those in
society who are less fortunate, and for whom fasting is a daily reality. But
for some inspired by radical violent causes, it is a call to arms where
violence carries more reward in accordance to the fossilized interpretations of
the minority cult of death that is ISIS. Last month, ISIS firebrand preacher
and chief social media recruiter, Muhammad
al-Adnani, released a video calling on other self-proclaimed jihadists “to make
it a month of calamity everywhere for non-believers . . . especially for the
fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.” In the U.S.,
one “lone wolf” in Orlando took heed of this deadly call and committed one of
the worst acts of violence in the history of the US.

Like
many Muslims in America, I was hoping against all hope that the perpetrator was
not a Muslim. Not because a mass shooting perpetrated by a non-Muslim assailant
would have made the tragedy less horrific, but because as a Muslim in America,
I am fully aware of what ensues in collectivization discourses and abject depictions
of all Muslim and Islam, as it is the case for a certain presidential
candidate.

Since the terrorist attacks
of 9/11, Muslim Americans have become a “doormat minority” for politicians
pandering to the lowest common denominator of bigoted voters. Any politicians
wanting to score points with the far right has to excoriate Muslims as a
political rite of passage. Islamophobia is the new norm in US political and
media discourse. Facile stereotypes of the faith and its practitioners are
replete in US shows, and Hollywood portrayals. Even uber liberal Bill Maher did
not disappoint as he engaged in one of his usual hate-filled and uninformed rants against Islam and Muslims in his HBO show.Muslims have
become accustomed to defining their faith in terms of what it is not, instead of what it is. So when the name of the Orlando shooter
was revealed, a sudden drop in our collective guts as Muslims was immediate.
Not another act of murder in our name and in the name of our religion.

In their own
ways, 9/11 shook many Muslim-Americans out of its abeyance, and have since engaged
in every day acts of resistance against these assaults on their faith. These
include education, outreach, interfaith dialogue, and rejection of those
amongst us who hold extremist Islamist views. Muslims continue to reject
radical binaries and tackle literalist, extremist interpretations of Islamic
texts, in particular, passages in the Qur’an and Hadith, on war, apostasy, and
violence, which must be subjected to new, unequivocal interpretations to fit
the modern social and political realities of Muslim-minority states.

In this vein, the
Muslim-American leadership has been swift in its condemnation of the Orlando
attacks on the LGBTQI community. Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
exhibited sagacious leadership when he declared that “For
many years, members of the LGBTQI. community have stood shoulder to shoulder
with the Muslim community against any acts of hate crimes, Islamophobia,
marginalization, and discrimination. Today we stand with them shoulder to
shoulder,” he said. “The liberation of the American Muslim community is
profoundly linked to the liberation of other minorities—blacks, Latinos, gays,
Jews, and every other community. We cannot fight injustice against some groups
and not against others. Homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia—we cannot
dismantle one without the other.”

Awad
is correct that the fight for equality and acceptance is a common collective struggle,
and discourses of homophobia are as dangerous and destructive as those of Islamophobia.
He is also spot-on in his unambiguous denunciation of ISIS ideology and violence:
“You do not speak for us,” he said. “You do not represent us. You are an
aberration. You are outlaws.” He went on, “They don’t speak for our faith. They
claim to, but 1.7 billion people are united in rejecting their extremism and their
acts of senseless violence.”

The cancer of
radical Islamism gnawing at the fabric of Islam is alive and perniciously well,
and has yet again reached the US shores. The two are not mutually exclusive. ISIS-inspired
attacks have targeted a number of countries around the world, especially as the
terrorist outfit’s Manichean war on the “gray zone” of cross-cultural and civilizational
dialogue continues unabated even as they are ceding territory in Iraq and
Syria. ISIS’s losses on the battle ground in the Middle East has pushed it to
shift its strategy towards exporting violence into western cities. The threat
of ISIS ideology is evident in the self-radicalization of assailants. The fact
that Mateen frequented that same gay club, and may have been on gay dating
applications does not mean he couldn’t have been self-radicalized. Self-radicalization and homosexuality are not mutually
exclusive. Some of the Belgium terrorists also patronized gay clubs, bars and
such. There is no evidence that ISIS directed the Orlando attack, but Mateen
did call and pledge allegiance to ISIS, and one can be a gay, Muslim, deranged,
ISIS sympathizer all at the same time.

But this is not
an issue of radicalism alone, especially in the US where lone wolf attacks are
especially devastating because of lax gun control laws. In the United States, the death rate from gun
homicides, including mass shootings like Orlando, is about 31 per million
people — that is 27 people shot dead every day of the year.The US eclipses other western industrialized
democracies in gun-related fatalities so much that the odds of being killed by
a gun in Japan are similar to being struck by lightning in the U.S.Easy
access to semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons has wreaked much havoc on
US society, as politicians continue to shirk responsibility to enact even
tougher laws on gun sales.

President Obama’s
multiple passionate calls for Congress to remedy the issue have largely been
thwarted by the gun lobby, and a segment of the population that views any gun
control regulations tantamount to disarmament. The fact is that tougher gun
control laws would have probably prevented Omar Mateen from walking into a
store, while on the FBI radar, and purchase a deadly AR-15 assault rifle. In
any other society, that is cause for alarm and a definition of madness, but in
the US, some are myopic and prefer to speak about radical Islamism only, when the
FBI estimates that 90% of attacks in the US since 1980
have been conducted by non-Muslims.

Back in Morocco,
confusion and frustration are manifold, and some even paid tribute to the
victims of the Orlando shooting. In the capital city of Rabat, Moroccan activists took part in a vigil holding signs that reads: “Homophobia
kills!” When I told my own mother about
the attacks and that they were committed by a Muslim, she briskly interrupted:
“No, he is not a Muslim.” Her powerful
rejection of Omar Mateen and his violent act was further consecrated when I went
to perform the Taraweeh prayers later that night. During the prayers observed
in Ramadan only, the imam of my neighborhood mosque recited a Quranic verse
that is as poignant as it is timely given the Orlando
hate crime: "Whoever kills a person [unjustly]…it is as though he has
killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all
mankind."(Qur’an, 5:32) These are the values and true message of Islam
that are lost on the minority extremists in the US and ISIS alike.